Pictures to Cherish

Getting in the frame

Why It’s So Important To Get Family Photographs Taken

I was looking back through my family’s photo albums recently.  And what a great pleasure it is in our family to drag the albums out a couple of times a year and marvel at how funny we all looked in the 70s, 80s & 90s!

I know the pictures well; I love them! 

They are like those old stories you love hearing time after time – after time.

But where is my Mum?

So it came as a big surprise to realise that there are hardly any pictures of me with my mum.  She was always the one behind the camera, and whilst my brother and I gamely posed for photos in front of another landmark or for another occasion, it was rare that my dad, or anyone else, took the camera and turned it round on her!

And where am I?

I became aware recently, that I am doing the same thing.  I have precious pictures of my children that I cherish – I already adore looking back just a couple of years when their cheeks were chubby and their steps so stumbly!  But there were very few pictures of them WITH me. 

So I made a resolution.  Not a New Years Resolution, but an ongoing resolution!  I will take the time to stop; find a willing body and ask them to take a picture of my children with me.  It doesn’t matter if I haven’t done my make-up, or that my hair hasn’t been brushed in what looks like days, or that I’m having a fat day!  I want to capture these moments with my babies; before those babies are babies no longer.

In the end, this little journey through our old albums has reminded me that these moments won’t come round again, and it’s so important to get family photos taken while we can.

The few photos of me and my mum really are pictures to cherish.  Those pictures are the things that I would run back into a burning building to save (along with my children, obvs!).  I adore looking back on them and I really do cherish them. And I hope, in years to come, my children will cherish the pictures of us together too! 

I want to be present in the story I’m capturing — not just behind the lens but right there beside my children, muddy knees, wild hair and all. These images become the threads that tie our memories together, and I’m determined to make sure there are plenty for us to look back on with an enormous amount of fondness in the years to come.

Pictures to Cherish

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